When I think about emergentism, a lot of questions always arise (and of course I don't ask to be answered, since they are a bit rhetorical): When we say that something emerges from a physical thing, do we say that what emerges is also physical? And why do we say it is physical? Is it because they share some property? Is there any consensus on the definition of this property? Is it because they share constituent parts? Is it because the relationships and laws that govern these constituent parts explain the characteristics and properties of that which emerges? If emergentism tells us that new properties arise from its constituent parts, are the properties of the parts preserved in the new reality that emerges? Or are the properties lost? If the property is "being physical," wouldn't it be necessary to determine how that physical property is repeated and persists in the reality that supposedly emerges?

One can say that a citizen is composed of cells, but it is difficult to say that cells can be fellow citizens of each other. That seems like a categorical error. I think that emergentism gives an explanatory power to composition that it really does not have and that it constantly proves not to have as soon as we try to explain an increasingly larger whole from the parts. Thus falling into constant fallacies of division and composition. What remains in doubt is that we are actually talking about a whole in which each of its parts share a common property that, however, seems too specific and that can be applied less and less as we increase the focus to see a larger reality and greater content. And not only that, but the rule of unidirectional construction from the smallest to the largest is called into question. This is why I am not a substantialist (physical substance monism in this case) but instead advocate insubstantial pluralism.

There is the architectural metaphor. It tells us that there are building bricks from which structures and objects such as buildings are formed. But when I ask myself what are the building bricks of, say, computer language, ethical and moral values, mathematics and many other things (that at first do not seem physical to us) I feel like we are talking about how a joined bricks of a building explain the functions of the company that operates in that building.

I think you do not take into account that the gravitational singularity is defined according to space-time, although we are talking about an infinite curvature. If the value of curvature is taken to a limit, it does not imply that we stop talking about curvature, nor its need to represent it in space-time. I claim that the need to represent according to a space-time scheme tells us something about space-time time itself. At this point the philosophy of space-time can provide us with the general-ontological concept that is exercised in physics. We can ask ourselves: Does the gravitational singularity coexist with the current state of the universe? Should we differentiate them as two different moments? You could say: "In the gravitational singularity there is no before or after." Well, then there is an inadequacy of that space-time scheme that we use to represent the difference between one state of the universe and another state.

You're still stuck in the Newtonian causality. While I agree with you, in fact I said this in my previous post that there was always something, and that the universe did not come from nothing, your train of thought is still the regularity of the laws of the universe. We are totally not on the same page. — L'éléphant

I wouldn't say Newtonian. I conceive spatiality and temporality as part of the thing to the extent that it is always in relationship. However, when talking about the order of coexistence and order of succession I am talking about something that all science implies when using the notions of space and time. Hence, taking the example of the theory of relativity, we represent things in planes and diagrams (such as Minkowski diagrams). Things, in this sense, are always constituted by the spatio-temporality in which their effects and relationships are expressed. In this sense the thing, its relationships, and its effects on other things are in a correlation that determines its being and existence. Therefore, it is not valid to think of an isolated absolute thing (absolved from all relationships) from which everything arises, nor nothingness from which something comes to existence.

You have a three-year-old. You ask him to go to the big fruit bowl on the table across the room and get you two apples and two oranges. You don’t ask him with words because he’s not good with number signs. Instead, you hold up two fingers and say, “apples.” Next, you hold up two other fingers and say, “oranges.” — ucarr

In that case "two fingers" is the third one I am referring to. "Two fingers" is the sign here. To the "two fingers" you have to ADD "oranges" or "apples". Why do you have to add them? Because with the number the numbered thing is not given. The child already understands this autonomy of "2" (for example with the other fingers of the hands) and is able to apply it to different things. He has evidently learned it as something third that is not between apples and oranges. Well, let's remember, if the number were intrinsic to things there would never be two pairs of fruits, the "2" would not be a third; the "2" would belong to one thing and not another (so as not to violate identity).

It just preserves from one pair to another pair what the eyes perceive. Number signs, in order to be assigned meaning, must first be referenced to something tangible and countable — ucarr

No. Relating them (reference) to something "tangible" does not imply their identification. The relationship in this case presupposes two terms, the number and the numbered as something different. The effective relationship implies only that we can do it and that there is a passage from the number to the thing numbered. How is it possible that we can manipulate things by counting them and not fail at every attempt to manipulate them? It is not because there is something numerical in the thing, but because the thing allows itself to be chiseled, so to speak (that is why in general geometric figures do not exactly adjust to the tangible things to which we apply, the same thing happens with numbers, there are always a rest).

I can give you an example of math attached to tangible things and thereby being meaningful and useful: civil engineering. — ucarr

Chiselling. You have to adapt the raw materials for their numerical application. Only then can you successfully manipulate them (numerically, in a exact way) and build bridges, pyramids, etc.

A toddler can see the difference but does not see it as a numerical difference. He can see the difference between an isolated object, and see objects of the same type, or similar, together and separated in space. But there is no number there that he sees. If we tell the toddler to repeat what he has found (difference, spatiality, similarity, etc.) as an order (like in a market) he will not be able to. He needs the objectification that a symbol gives him, for example, in such a way that this symbol can enter into a relationship with other symbols. If we ask what a '9' is, we cannot answer with difference, nor with spatiality, nor with similarity. We respond in relation to other numbers with which this 9 is contextualized, as an addition, of unity, for example, among many others.

The case is that "the number" always appears as another of the things we count. Someone who has already learned elementary mathematics (such as simple numbering) can ask them to give you two oranges or two apples. If the number were not different from the numbered things, it would not be possible to give us two apples after giving us two oranges. Since if the number is not a third with respect to apples and oranges, this number falls into the essence of some of the objects, which would lead to saying that two oranges ARE two apples. Violating identity. That is why we must differentiate between the number and the numbered, and in fact in practice we always do.

With respect to the topic in question we cannot say that the number (in this case the number "1") is an essential (or internal) property of the thing. It is an external property of the thing.

If none of these numbers are there, then how do you assign the number-signs to what you see? — ucarr

Isomorphism.

The in-absentia status of pure numbers gives the impression of their categorical independence, but no, numbers never completely exit the natural world. — ucarr

Well, given what I've said independence is real. Otherwise we fall into contradiction and the complete uselessness of mathematics.

What's new and had existed infinitely was the singular point that has infinitesimal volume. Then big bang happened — L'éléphant

So you think you are as old as the big-bang?

If not then you have come into existence like many other people. And not only that but you are different from the mythical primordial singularity of physicists.

But as I said in my answer, although things come into existence constantly, what would be unusual is for them to come from nothing. Since generally there is a causality that precedes and explains them, kinda. The important thing is that "coming into existence" presupposes the order of coexistence and the order of succession. From this it follows that the universe did not come out of nothing: It could have been there forever.

Yesterday I went to the market and told a worker "give me two of those melons." He gave me the two melons.

But! The imaginary worker-philosopher might have told me "there are not two, there are 57." I wonder, is number two in number 57? But objectively there are not 2 melons, there are 57. Or maybe there are two and 57 at the same time, objectively. There can also be 4 and 57 at the same time. Are there also two pairs? where is the rule for counting? Surely it is not in the thing itself! Isn't it the case that when I said "two" I have given something that wasn't there, a difference, a partition, a slice, a rule, a number simply different from 57 regardless of whether they are melons, apples or anything else? So number is different from numbered things.

I wouldn't say "in-built math". Toddler can differentiate and identify. The quantity appear in another level perception. After all, when we think in numbers we don't think at the same time all the things we have counted.

Well, if he doesn't know how to count he probably doesn't know that there are two things. He knows that there is a difference and that they are separated in space, that one thing is not the other, that they are similar, etc. Then perhaps a proto-two will appear in his mind that will then finally be objectified and solidified as knowledge thanks to teaching and learning. But obviously "the two" will not have arisen from the thing itself, rather it is something that happens to the thing when it enters into a relationship with someone who defines the measure and sees the difference between the two, and the Lollipops.

If this is something you cannot know — ucarr

I have said "I have" as I can say "I have counted." To you it seems that apples and oranges are numbers, to me their numeration may simply be external properties that are only acquired in relationship. The latter is true and the former is false (due to impossibility to identify the number and the numbered).

then your argument above has no grounding in fact and therefore no logically attainable truth content, only blind guesswork. On that basis, why should I accept it? — ucarr

Because I have also indicated something that I do know: That the apples and oranges have been counted and have been subjected to number. And because they are differentiated (they are in a different place, for example, or do not share the same space) they can be counted.

You say number stands apart from apples and oranges . When we look at number five apart from them, we know nothing about their number. How do you know both have number five? — ucarr

We do not know. "Have" refers to property. I prefer to say apples and oranges can be counted as something potential. We learn to count. But first things appear differentiated. The number is also differentiated, and in that case we would speak of isomorphism.

Since number five, in abstraction, tells us nothing about apples, oranges or any other physically real thing, that tells us pure math, in order to be physically real and thus inhere within particular, physical things, and thus be existentially significant, meaningful and useful, must evaluate down to physical particulars. Universals are emergent from particulars, but they are not existentially meaningful in abstraction. — ucarr

Well, they always tell us something significant and meaningful about themselves. Whether they are useful or not would be something extrinsic.

Physical: anything subject to the spacetime warpage of gravitational fields — ucarr

How is number 5 deformed by gravitational fields

I don't mean given in the sense of something given once and for all without the need for explanation. I am referring to something given in a historically validated scientific field. When you learn mathematics you access demonstrations, laws, necessary relationships and so on that you can practice without having to think about a supposedly more fundamental reality (let's say physics). That it is unnecessary is proof of an autonomy of the sciences and of the discontinuity in knowledge as a whole.

If I have 5 oranges in one basket and I have 5 apples in another basket, the 5 does not seem to participate in Appleness nor the orangeness. So the number is not the same as numbered things. "5" is not oranges, nor apples, it only applies extrinsically. Therefore is wrong to say that "5" is physical "because apples and oranges are physical". You must say that numbers are physical things by itself to the extent of numbered things (apples and oranges).

Then it is necessary to define what you mean by a physical thing.

I see what you mean. But what I’m wanting to differentiate is the sensory from the intellectual. Numbers and the like can only be apprehended by a rational intelligence that is capable of counting. It is that faculty which I claim that physicalism cannot meaningfully account for. — Wayfarer

If I understand correctly, you are referring to something similar to Kant's categories. In this case to the quantity category. Well, I'm not a big fan of nativism. Although I consider that there is certainly a disposition of consciousness that allows access to mathematical knowledge without many problems. That is, consciousness is not primarily a tabula rasa but is already in a certain continuity with a differentiated world (here differentiation would be a genesis of the category of quantity). The mathematical knowledge that we learn as children shapes this disposition of the human intellect to the point that we can conceive a mathematical object in itself and in its ideality. I speak of an objective and historically rooted constructivism.

Now, the history, this history since I am born and molded to the point of being able to conceive mathematical objects in their ideality and objectivity cannot be described in terms of physics. It is like founding epistemology from quantum physics. That doesn't make any sense. In this sense the whole is more than what we believe its parts to be. Even the idea that we talk about a whole and its parts seems to falter. We may have to talk about different realities in relationship where no reality is more fundamental than the other. This would be a materialism, but a materialism of the Platonic Symploke without substance and without fundamentalism in order to respect the relative autonomy and irreducibility of the dimensions of reality evidenced by the sciences.

I mean phenomena in the sense that they are objects that are presented and prepared for scientific work. These objects, however, may be the product of a historical construction, but at some point in their history they are given in an epistemological cut from which they are presented as a category in the process of closure and establishment of sui generis circular relationships. In general, when we try to learn a science that is already historically established and solidified, the objects we learn are also solidly established. These objects are not given to us as something dependent on a more fundamental reality (say, physics) but as sui generis objects, arranged in a body with a certain autonomy and ontological discontinuity with respect to other objects of a different kind. When we learn mathematics we do not learn "the neurochemical composition of numbers", nor is it necessary to do so to access its scientific nature: We access demonstrations, laws, necessary relationships, etc. given in a gnoseological and ultimately ontological discontinuity.

If this is the case, and things can start to exist, for no prior reason (they are uncaused), then why don't we see more things starting to exist at different times? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Actually we do see many new things appear: new stars, new human beings, new social problems, new diseases, new hopes, new philosophies, new theories, new films, new technologies, etc. What is not common is that something new arises out of nothing and for no reason. It always seems that if something new comes into existence (and that did not exist before) we are obliged to think about it in the order of coexistence and in the order of relation. In other words, we are obliged to think about the new among other things that precede its existence and with which it is related in some way. This is perhaps the most rational aspect of existence: That nothing comes from nothing.

I think you're echoing Chalmers, but going beyond asking for a theory of consciousness to asking for a theory of abstractions (like math) as well. He said we should start with just proposing phenomenal consciousness as a thing to be explained by science, similarly to the way gravity was added, with no insistence that science as it is has to be able to answer it. It could be that we have to wait for more quantum theory answers? Or maybe a type of physics that we haven't thought of yet. — frank

Certainly what I have said is close to what Chalmers thinks. Although I would not go so far as to talk about the mental, the mathematical, etc. as something fundamental in the sense that simple fundamental particles exist. I would simply say that there are phenomena that are given. And we are fortunate that to the extent that we work with these phenomena, other things appear: laws, relationships, correlations, demonstrations, and certain epistemological closures (or categorical closures) that make a set of phenomena and objects something exclusive to a science. : Physics does not have language as its object of study, nor the rational actors of the economy, nor the Pythagorean theorem, etc.

Something that generally happens to reductionism when it fails to carry out a reduction is that it tries to proceed by presupposing semantically, phenomenologically, and practically what it intends to reduce. To take an example: If we imagine that thanks to some kind of super advanced experiment we can associate a certain experience (say, seeing a dog) with some quantum determination in the brain, we have to talk to our guinea pig in terms different from those of physics so that we can carry out the association: "Think of a dog", or "see this picture of a dog" we say to the subject of the experiment. But without the semantic content of those words and the knowledge of what an experience is (without using terms from physics) we would not be able to carry out the experiment or any association between the experience and "brain physics."

As result these things that appear to us in scientific practice (relations, correlations, discoveries, demonstrations, principles, laws, etc.) are also literally reduced to nothing if we carry out a physicalist reduction. The result is that we have a poorer, reduced and scarce knowledge of the world.

I don't think this is the place to discuss the reductionism involved in conceiving meaning as simple brain processes. There is an association but no identification; and the association cannot be carried out without semantically, operationally and phenomenologically presupposing the term with which we want to associate the brain processes. Association is not identification. In any case it is quite off-topic to talk about this here.

Yes: without the need for this reduction we can access truths, demonstrations, deductions, correlations, empirical verifications, and so many other scientific validations through other sciences.

The question is whether physicalism should be founded on knowledge. Founded on the knowledge provided by our sciences. Otherwise, ironically, physicalism would be anti-scientific. At this point we can ask ourselves if the multiplicity of sciences can give us an idea or evidence of how the world is constituted. No longer taking each science separately but all the sciences as a whole, and taking irreducibility as evidence.

And of course this evidence must be explained: Why can't we reduce mathematics to physics? And most importantly: How is it that without the need for this reduction we can access truths, demonstrations, correlations, empirical verifications, and so many other scientific validations?. Physicalism, consequently, when put into practice, restricts us from knowing many things and knowing many truths about the world. In this sense I think it can be said that physicalism is scientifically false.

I'm more interested in whether we can get an idea of how the definitive argument from physicalism would work with which it could be demonstrated to be true.

But more than an argument it would actually be an operation. The operation would consist of an effective reduction of all the contents of the world objectified by the sciences [biology, economics, psychology, sociology, logic, mathematics, phenomenology, philosophy, etc.] to phenomena, terms, relations, correlations, operations and demonstrations of that specific science that is physics.

For example, a physical theory of supply and demand that reduces it to relationships between, so to speak, their masses and their covalent bonds. A physical theory of the Pythagorean theorem that reduces it to relationships between atoms of some element, etc.

Is that something impossible? If it is impossible then we need another ontology. A more pluralistic ontology that can identify genres and irreducible categories. But also an ontology that identifies how these genres and categories of what exists are related to each other.

However, the message, the information is not complete and until the sender completes it. (Indeed, a frustrated "Let me finish, please" may come in if the listener interrupts the speaker.) — Alkis Piskas

I think I understand what you mean. You try to think of the situation as a whole. However, keep in mind that communication is never complete at once, it must be built. I can tell you something, but always, for whatever reason, my words may not reach their recipient. Perhaps the mistake is to conceive the meaning and information retroactively once the whole is constituted (as when a listener hears a sender and says "this is what he had thought", when in reality it cannot be the same). I prefer to say that the whole is a meaningful relationship where meaning emerges in various parts but is not the whole. Retroactivity is an erroneous causal inversion, where we imagine that the result (the message) was at the beginning.

Meaning is part of the whole, but it is not the whole. I think we both mean the same thing when you talk about a complete message. For it is certainly completed when it has meaningful effects. When I hear you, when I think I understand you, the message is already complete, but because it has already had its effects and a significant relationship has been established. However, I think it is impossible to say that the message is distributed among the interlocutors. Instead of the message I talk about the messages, in plural. The only thing that is maintained is the mutual relationship with respect to a third thing that is constantly being determined and differentiated.

If you ask me something and I answer you, my answer in terms of exchange is as "empty" as your question. You may reply to me "but then there is no communication."
— JuanZu
Can't get this — Alkis Piskas

What I mean is that the sounds, the ink marks, the file, the pixels, are empty in that they are devoid of meaning. They provoke meaning as soon as they enter into a relationship with a system of signs distinct in each case.

Well, I find all this a little too complicated. And why you keep rescticting communucation in oral form? — Alkis Piskas

Oral communication is just one example among others. I can also speak in the same way about letters. When you read a letter of mine that I have sent you (or an email), you imagine that the meaning you generate is the same as that of the sender (me). But in reality, because it is generated and created at the time of reading, it cannot be the same. Hence, I have raised the need to think about something that appears third and indeterminate.

Can't get this either. Sorry. Affectation implies pretense and/or conspicuousness. How does this enter in a simple, straightforward communication? In commmunication in its general sense, as it is commonly and widely used? — Alkis Piskas

If we talk about a letter, I mean that the ink marks affect you and produce effects on you (like another system of signs, in this case alive). These effects are the meaning, your inner language is affected and caused to be determined in x way: Something specific appears in your thought, some specific words arranged in a specific way.

Again I agree with everything, except for one thing:

Now, again, one could disagree and say, e.g. "But JuanZu has communated something to you, independently of whether you receive it, read it, reply to it, etc.". And again, yes, but only loosely speaking. No communication (exchange) can take place until the other part replies to the message, in whatever form, time and place. Even with just an "OK" or a symbol, like an emoji. And even without actually reading and obtaining the conveyed information. Well, this would not be of course the best one could expect from a communication, but it would still be a communication. There would be an exchange of information. — Alkis Piskas

I have problems with this. When we talk about exchange we talk about something that passes from one side to the other while being the same. Like money, or a commodity. However, that does not happen with meaning and information. If I talk to you, no matter how much you respond to me, your words (like sounds, sound waves) do not contain any meaning that travels through the air with them. In each moment the meaning is created as something new (that is why there can always be error in interpretation, a "wrong" meaning because it is always new).

If you ask me something and I answer you, my answer in terms of exchange is as "empty" as your question. You may reply to me "but then there is no communication." And there certainly isn't if we continue to think of communication as representation. That is to say, normally when I hear your words – whether in the form of a question or in the form of an answer – I imagine that I am thinking the same thing as you but duplicated. However, that is not true, if we assume that meaning does not fly with sounds, nor is it transported in ink marks, etc., a fortiori we cannot say that I think the same as you.

So what is communication? This is my approach: Communication in this case is a mutual affectation where multiple meanings are created, but nothing is exchanged. It is a relationship of affectation around a third thing, but not of representation. The meaning, in the case of two speakers, is the third thing that maintains the relationship, it is an indeterminate third that is always differentiating and determining itself. It only appears and repeats itself as a third place, being pure virtuality. And if it is a third for two speakers, it is the fourth for three, and so on. Our interpretations of what the other person says [in the case of two speakers] refer to a third in terms of its pure tertiary, but indeterminated. Inside you and me this indeterminate virtual thirdness happens, and we gravitate to that, so to speak. That is the only thing that is repeated and remains the same: the third, the fourth, etc. for each case. We don't think the same [ I can always missunderstand you and think something totally different] but we share this thirdness as mutually happens to us.

I agree with everything. I would just like to clarify that a system of signs is not necessarily a living system of signs [this would be demonstrated by computation]. As for "exchanging information" I have always wondered what is being exchanged. That is, continuing with the example of this forum, you see these marks on a screen, they are pixels. Where is the information and meaning of these marks? I can use a magnifying glass or a microscope to examine these pixels and probably won't find anything like meaning. It is because of this problem that I speak of meaning as an effect of an effective and active relationship between signs. It follows that nothing is exchanged, but is constantly produced as something new. Right now, when you read this, you are creating meaning as an effect of "my" words. But I am certainly not sending you anything, I am simply provoking something in you in a technologically mediated relationship. This is very counterintuitive.

(The sign language you are talking about is a special form of language that uses visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words (and other symbols contained in written language.) — Alkis Piskas

I agree. There are sign systems of all kinds. When I talk about sign systems I do so in a more or less formal sense. There are written, spoken, thought, machined and many more types of systems in nature.

I wonder what mess would have been created if he was taking that alo into consideration! :grin: — Alkis Piskas

Given Wittgenstein's character, I prefer not to think about what he would answer. It makes me anxious.



Have a great new year too.

The biggest difference I have with Wittgenstein is what I said in my response to @AlkisPiskas:

"Thus, taking the example of a book (a book-dictionary), the written marks enter into a relationship with our language sedimented in our memory. But the book cannot be ignored as an active element in the production of meaning. Wittgenstein's theory would ignore the book as an active agent and give primacy to the subject as the producer of meaning as he uses his learned language".

I claim that there is a certain autonomy of signs that explain how another system of signs is affected. For example, when we read a book, some specific linguistic signs appear in our thoughts and not others. This effect cannot be justified simply by the intentional use of the reading individual without the active intervention of the book. In a certain sense I say that the book writes in the subject and triggers a series of effects that individualize the language we use and with which we think and speak in general. This explains the fact that we can learn new words through a dictionary, without needing to see someone, another subject, using them. This implies that the relationship called "reading" is not saturated by the use learned by the subject. Which explains the possibility of error, misuse and disuse.

In fact, if we follow one of Wittgenstein's theses on private languages, the thesis that there is a public language implies an impersonal and supra-subjective element where a language seems to escape the intentional use of the subject [psychoanalysis is based on this theory]. In this sense, language is a system of signs with a certain autonomy beyond the use of individuals. Which obviously makes it possible to treat language in a more objective way. Is the intentional element necessarily linked to language use? So, if the intentional element is exceeded, we cannot continue talking about use, but, in a certain sense, we must talk about language acting by itself, we talk about a living system of signs, as opposed to a dead one, like that of a machine –but still a system of signs–. It is no coincidence that you speak of something "dead" of a system of signs understood beyond intentional use. I claim that signification always has a dead but totally active face.

I think that you are talking about how one uses a language in general and not esp. definitions, which is our subject. Because if one does not follow the grammar and syntax rules of one's language, this will be reflected in everything one says or writes, wouldn't it?

Your ideas on the subject of language sound quite original and maybe there's something really interesting and useful here. However, I admit that they are not clear to me. — Alkis Piskas

Use is part of the meaning but it is not everything. Wittgenstein's theory is incomplete without a theory of the sign. That is why I talk about sign systems. Instead of saying that a system of signs is always being used in order to have meaning, I would say that a system of signs is always in effective relationship with another system of signs in order to have meaning. Thus, taking the example of a book (a book-dictionary), the written marks enter into a relationship with our language sedimented in our memory. But the book cannot be ignored as an active element in the production of meaning. Wittgenstein's theory would ignore the book as an active agent and give primacy to the subject as the producer of meaning as he uses his learned language.

But emotions are not and should not be part of or belong to definitions. I brought up "emojies" in the context of written language in general. — Alkis Piskas

I understand. What I wanted to point out is that there is a reason why there are no emoji-type expressions, casual expressions and so on. The reason is that there is the intention of objectivity, of the concept and of the universal. I also wanted to point out that according to the theory of the sign that I work on (which refers to the texts of Peirce, Derrida, Saussure among others) it is always, in a certain sense, universalizing: Leaving itself and having effects on the other (in another system of signs), as if becoming a ghost, extending his identity towards the other. The meaning would be the effects of the signs extending their spatiality and temporality. A good book (or a good dictionary) is remembered by many: Its being and its effects seem to transcend its particular spatiality and temporality.

I wasn't referring to a conscious being either. But it is necessary that this thing be a creator which causes something from nothingness. However the question remains: How does this solitary cause affect nothingness to create something? It is necessary to affect in order to cause. Otherwise we only have succession without causality (that is why saying that one thing is prior to another thing does not tell us anything about causality; if I say that my older brother is prior to my existence that does not mean that my brother be the cause of my existence).

If we accept that affecting nothingness and creating something from it is irrational, then we must admit that this first cause is in the order of coexistence, coexisting with other things that it can affect. But this implies that the first cause is not actually the first cause but a cause between others.

That is why I have said that to correctly state the first cause, it must be stated as a creation from nothing, that is, as a first thing creating a second thing, affecting nothingness in some way. But nothingness cannot be affected. So, the conclusion is that the notion of first cause is also inconsistent. To cause something you need affect something; and to affect something you must belong to the order of coexistence (and it is no coincidence that to represent causality we need planes, Cartesian or not).

Here is my contribution:

First of all, it seems to me that to raise the possibility of a first cause one must start from a simple entity [non-composite: since if it is composite we cannot speak of a cause in the singular but of causes in the plural].

Secondly, the creation of the world [as an effect] must be treated as a binary relationship Where A causes B. More than two make several causes, and not a single cause.

Thirdly, this binary relationship must be understood as creation from nothing [as God is supposed to have created the universe from nothing: Creatio ex nihilo]. Since if there were a thing B affected by a thing A, B would have to be presupposed coexisting with A.

Fourthly, the first cause cannot be a single thing differentiating itself (monism) or being the cause of itself. That destroys the difference between cause and effect. The creator and the created.

_______________________________

So:

How can the first cause affect nothingness to produce the world?

Can not. Ex nihilo nihil fit.

From my point of view, what we call causality in its minimum expression is the power of an agent A to affect a thing B, achieving an effect C [but there can be more agents A, and more things B. And C can be a third thing itself or C as B altered by A]. Three elements are necessary for there to be a causal relationship. Consequently, we cannot say that a first cause has caused the world as if one thing A had created a second thing B distinct from it without the intervention of a pre-existing B already to produce C. Taking an analogy as an example, It is as if somehow a mother A gives birth C without the need for a man B, or a sperm, etc [And not only that but also as saying that the father , or the sperm, is created by the Mother] . And if someone argues that a cell can divide itself, it must be pointed out that it is because a cell is a composite thing, and there is a causality inside that is also tripartite.

Conclusion: The notion of first cause can only consist of creatio ex nihilo [Something affecting nothingness]. But that is merely irrational.

I think meaning is something that happens to a system of signs. Something that happens to the medium, so to speak. When two sign systems meet, they establish certain relationships where one affects the other actively and passively. These relationships are the meaning. For example, when we read a definition in a dictionary, we are affected by its system and its specific configuration (word order, spacing, syntax, etc.); The meaning is created in this relationship and this is determined as the certain configuring effects in our system of signs. That is, the letters affect our learned and memorized language, they resonate within it and individualize it (and this can be said a fortiori for someone using the language and speaking to us) Not so much in the sense that the medium is the message, but that the message is a relationship between the mediums. And meaning (as something iterable, repeatable, that survives through mediums) depends on the spatial and temporal stability of sign systems and their relationships.

In a dictionary there are usually no "emojis" or the facial expressions of the writer. But this is due to our intention of objectivity and the suitability of the medium for this purpose. Dictionaries have on their part the permanence and durability of ink in some cases, which can transcend the vocal sounds that are carried away by the wind (Socrates did not write, but we know about him thanks to Plato's ink). When we think about objectivity, theory, concept and universality (which characterize science and philosophy) we choose the most appropriate means for its realization. How important was Albert Einstein's mood at the time he first spoke about the theory of relativity? Not very important, in the paper there is no indication of his humor, there is no emoji—just like there isn't one in a dictionary. That is why for the theoretical and universalist intention of science and philosophy the empirical and contingent element is subtracted or abstracted dictionary-like. And what is said about a dictionary can also be said about any medium that gives us a definition or a concept: A paper, a manual, a recorded sound, a recorded explanation from someone, etc.

Right. But I consider empirical descriptions --i.e. examples of how a concept works in practice, in life, etc.-- quite important, since they make an abstract idea better undestandable --more concrete and more "visible" and tangible-- by giving flesh and bones to it. — Alkis Piskas

Yes me too.

Every time we apply the concept more broadly (in daily life, in practical examples, analogies, metaphors, etc.) we are doing something that is supposed to be its essence: Universality and its application to many cases at different space and time. And according to what was said above, our theories, concepts, definitions and laws (just like meaning, and other "universal" things that are repeated through space and time) are relationships between sign systems of great stability in space and time. The ink in a dictionary is not carried away by the wind, as can happen with spoken sounds. That is why the dictionary as a written medium is more suitable than speech to realize universality. And a fortiori the same can be said of computers, SSD, "the cloud", etc.

Why would you want to live in a world alone where everything, including people, is fictional? Sounds terrifying. It is also very disrespectful to the people you love and people who love you. I can't think of anything more selfish.

What are "digital marks on the internet"? E.g. emojis, icons, buttons, etc.?
Also, what dou you mean by "a digital philosophy forum"? I can think of two kinds of (any) fora: online and offline. — Alkis Piskas

Yes. You can say that they are simply pixel-marks. In any case, in general, due to context limitations, we can only resort to other digital marks to make ourselves understood by other people. In this context we cannot make ostensive definitions, nor can we make gestures with the body, nor resort to the situation that surrounds us and we perceive with our senses. The above are empirical determinations of the context that are supplied and exceeded by the nature of the marks-signs that function even when these determinations (ostensive definitions, etc.) are not presented. We can call them ab-presence marks: Marks that can function without the presence of subjects.


When I talk to you in this forum I do not see your body, nor do I hear your words, nor do I see your gestures, I only see your ab-presence marks-signs in the space provided by the internet. But thanks to the abstraction of these empirical determinations we can establish a more universal, intercontinental, etc. communication. But above all, conceptual communication. And this works in a similar way to how a dictionary works: to make explicit what we want to say we have to use words that refer to other words, without being able to access many empirical and practical determinations of meaning.


Maybe now what I said is more understandable:


“Here there are no practical examples that indicate the use of words, but, similar to a dictionary, we have to work only with marks referring to each other.”


This is why the use of dictionaries is so useful in these contexts (such as in a philosophy forum). That is, a definition through marks is more universal and conceptual (and it is no coincidence that the concept and the universal are related, differentiating themselves from particularity and empirical limitation).


______________________________


However, philosophical discussions are not common as everyday conversations are. That is why I have referred to philosophical discussion as non-normal or non-common discussion. Because in philosophical discussion we work with concepts and the concepts themselves are thematized. It has a universal approach that the everyday use of language does not have. For this, a more abstract and global medium such as ab-presence marks-signs, whether physical or digital, is useful. Dictionaries work well in these contexts because they are composed of the abstract element of the concept: A dictionary can be used to understand another person even in the non-presence of the participants, at a distance (far from gestures, and from various empirical determinations), even when that person has already died.

Also, I'm talking esp. about basic, key terms used in a subject of the discussion. And that a "speaker" who is using them has to make it clear what they mean by them and how they use them, either by giving their definition or description and/or (practical) examples of their use.
Which, in most cases, is not ... the case. :smile: — Alkis Piskas

This is interesting because we can take our own case as an example: Our communication through digital marks on the internet. How can the use of words appear here, for example, in a digital philosophy forum? Here there are no practical examples that indicate the use of words, but, similar to a dictionary, we have to work only with marks referring to each other.

This can be constituted as a criticism of the notion of practical meaning that is based on empirical use. Well, the internet space breaks with the direct (live in person), empirical and practical use of words. But not only that, it reaches a greater and global space of understanding, as global as the Internet. In fact, one can speak of greater universality achieved by the digital space. Isn't this universality of meaning (signs or marks referring to each other, abstracted from experience and practical and everyday use) a greater possibility for philosophy?

It is very common in this context (that of philosophy) to say "I say this in this sense"), as a non-normal and non-everyday sense. And the perfect example is the neologism. Using words in their mostly differential and referential sense with respect to other words outside of the many specific contexts that delimit them opens the space for greater intelligibility and understanding. This is very similar to what Saussure called "langue" as opposed to "parole." This nature of words as signs is capable of breaking contexts and uses, offering the possibility of translation, intercommunication on a global scale and the creation of new meanings and uses. And philosophy finds this very useful.

Common sense tells me that there is a difference between reflection and what is reflected. Isn't the event horizon of a black hole just a reflection of what's inside the hole? If so, the metaphysical holographic principle consists of confusing the cause with the effect, and not only that, but it tries to eliminate the cause to be left with only the effect.


There also seems to be confusion about what "information" means. In physics, information is nothing other than the more or less ordered arrangement of different objects. Whether they are waves, whether they are entangled particles, etc. And I mention these last two cases because it is how it has been theorized that information exists in the event horizon.

I would say that the article is a bit irrelevant to what I have said and about the topic. Among all the mental juggling attempted in the article there is no mention of deontology, ethics, morality, or something related to is-ought problem (things which is what determines how nihilism and humanism can be raised and developed as relevant issues). I mean, first cause is not equivalent to a benevolent God, nor equivalent to God as the foundation of the meaning of life. We could talk about Aristotle's unmoved mover and there wouldn't be much difference. We could not deduce an ethical and moral theory from that. I think you should read my response to the OP again.

When we participate in meaningful communication we enter a dimension that we do not control at will. Language functions as a social law, kinda. For there to be understanding between two people they must share a language that they both understand (and the rules, uses, semantics and sintaxis of those languages are learned and not actively generated by the participants). There is no communication if each participant has a private language, as Wittgenstein would say.

Dictionaries are the written form of social law (digitally written for digital philosophers :) ). It functions as a "third" between two communication participants, and as a "fourth" if there are three participants. If some type of understanding is expected between the participants, it is always necessary to resort to the common law. Sometimes this law is embodied in dictionaries.

It seems to me that in the OP lies the dilemma between practical reason (morality, the meaning of life, ethics) and objective reason in Kant's philosophy. In practical reason, God can be related to a necessary idea but not demonstrable, as a physical law can be demonstrated. God is just an idea that seems to function as a foundation but without objective reality.

From this it can be followed, by a desire of objective reason, that in the objective world the prescriptive nature cannot be proven, nor does the ought-be, otherwise as physical law can. From this point it is easy to fall in nihilism, thanks to the objectivist reason that hoped to determine God in the same way that ancient theology determined him. Consequently, the meaning of life as a teleological expression of the law only finds its foundation in something unproven and undemonstrable. It can only be determinated as a necessary assumption at most.

Nietzsche would say that the idea of God belongs to the field of necessary fictions that guide our actions. But at the end of the day fictions. With which all objective foundation of the moral law disappears (like the order of how to act and what to pursue in our lives). Thus, what we understand by "meaning of life" would not have an objective foundation as pre-Kantian philosophy believed (theology, atomism, etc.)

From here it is easily understandable why the OP goes so far as to say that the world is irrational. Not because it is irrational in the descriptive sense (physics and objective sciences are rational because describes legaliform-properties of the world) but in the prescriptive sense.

That everyday dialogues involve no exchanges of information is a curious claim extremely counter-intuitive if true. — ucarr

Yes. What I'm claiming is extremely counterintuitive. But I hope that counterintuitiveness doesn't mean something bad or delegitimize what I'm saying.

In my common sense understanding, I have no question about this being an instance wherein an interweaving relationship is unfolding through the process of information exchange between two speakers having a conversation. — ucarr

Well, I wouldn't say that two people are exchanging information. I say that there is actually an act of informing the other (another person). In the sense that you are in-forming-other. You are forming something in the other person, making them interpret you, translate you, transcribe you.

How am I ever going to know what someone else is thinking? I will never know. My claim also affects what we call "representation", "knowledge", "truth" (adequation). Instead of knowing, what we do is interpret, produce something in us (even if it is related to something else); That relationship, however, is not one of similarity, it is not original-copy, etc. It's something else, I already call it in general terms "transcription".

But in your above quote, you acknowledge that utterances in dialogues are both logically inflected and aurally modulated. — ucarr

Yeah. The sounds uttered by a speaker may be ordered, spaced in time, accented, etc., but they do not imply any information until a system of signs interprets it. If sounds are the cause of information (what another person informs me) then we must differentiate the cause from the effect.

That this thinking and communicating is a physical, objective exchange of information through spacetime is evidenced by the generations of newborn humans who acquire language skills. — ucarr

I think you're talking about tradition. However, tradition can no longer be understood based on people transmitting something to each other; It must be understood based on the permanence of relationships and the sedimentation of signs. That is, a person puts his thoughts into a book: If another person who has the same language reads the book, it is most likely that it will have effects "in his head" similar to what a third person would have if he also read the book and has same language . If something is maintained is due to repetition and isomorphism. If there is isomorphism, there is resonance, then the three people (the writer of the book, and the two readers) understand each other.

Hence, as your statements may suggest (emphasis in bold mine), only an active mind can generate and then process information? — ucarr

Not at all. I have already said before that the concept of sign can be generalized to the non-living as long as we talk about informative relations. The relation between sign systems can be entirely physical; In each case we must deal with at least one relation between two or more sign systems which are affected by each other (without prejudice to the direction or dominance of the relation) and determine their specific relations. But above all, if we fall into the illusion of representation, we must determine what it is what we believe is transferred and elucidate the specific causality.

Is language something innate? I wouldn't go that far. But I would say that there is an aptitude in humans for language. And this is verified in the vocal apparatus and the ability to articulate, vocalize, modulate, accentuate, etc. sounds which actually are innate. Seems that once we utter the sound, this utterance creates pathways through the psyche's person, building what will ultimately be the mother tongue (sedimented language) through which the sound (or electrical signals) can pass with or without resistance – and this would determine the difference between understanding a person with our same language and not understanding a person with a different language.

So, the "scientific evidence" is also simulated. That's kinda a liar's paradox. :joke:

This is a reminder of why we need philosophy of science accompanying metaphysical speculations (grounded on some scientific approaches, but arbitrarily chosen) about world's ontology.

The basic question is this: are words more than their word-form? — NOS4A2

Well, yes. When a written mark (word) enters in a specific con-text, such as the story of a book, where it is related to other written marks (other words), it stops being simply an isolated mark and becomes the story (just like an individual enters in relation with others individuals and become society, the individual becomes something more than individual: a citizen). The whole is the story, and the signifiers (the parts) are retroactively affected by the story. A sign always, in a certain sense, "stands in place of something else"; It can be said that it refers us to something absent. And it becomes absent when it enters into relation with another sign that affects. For example, a descriptive language is in place of what it attempts to represent; and in this case what is represented seems to unfold, extend its essence beyond what it actually is. In this sense, a sign is not only a sign in itself, but a thing virtualizing itself and becoming another, surviving in the other, like a sign becomes a story in its relation with other signs.

It is relatively easy to give examples on the matter. I have already given several, as in the case of two people who speak the same language. The sounds uttered by each individual are nothing more than sound waves with a certain structure (this includes syntax). But in themselves, these waves do not contain information: if we assume that we have supertechnology with which we can isolate some sound wave and analyze it, we will not find anything other than sound -because is in abstent of relation.


Returning to our case, the sound uttered by one individual reaches the ears of another individual; This individual makes an acoustic image (just as Saussure understands it) of what he has heard; but now what appears is the language that the listener individual possesses. It means something to him: the sound uttered (one system of signs) has effects on another system of signs (the language sedimented in the listener's memory). The information in this case is nothing other than the specific configuration that the listener's language has acquired: "hello, how are you" our listening friend understands. They are specific effects in the listener's language due to the more or less ordered structure of the sound waves uttered by the speaker.


But in a communication between two persons we cannot think of this specific configuration ("hello, how are you") without a cause, and equally we cannot think of this specific configuration as something mysteriously contained in sound while it flies through the air. Given these two impossibilities, the conclusion, evidently, is that the effect suffered by the listener's is produced and not transferred.